Dirty Socks & Why I Love Them

Sunday, August 17, 2014
Aimee Larsen
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You see dirty socks, I see a story. Today is laundry day for my husbands dirty clothes. He doesn't have much to wash each week but every week I go out to the garage and pull this basket off the shelf. It's full of dirty, grass covered socks. The socks serve a purpose and are essential when lawn care is part of your mission to "debt freedom". His dirty socks each week are a reminder to me that I have a hard working husband who will do whatever it takes to provide for his family and more.

We began living a different life with a different mindset less than 2 years ago. People don't understand it and that's okay. We cut up credit cards and began paying off debt from the highest interest rates and lowest payments first. We snowball debt. We've gotten laser focused, made mistakes along the way, but we are trying. As of result we've paid off nearly $30k in debt and still working at it. Consumer debt gets out of hand when you are borrowing Peter to pay Paul and wanting more "things" than you truly deserve to have or earned...or saved for.

However, every single time I go to the garage and pick up this basket of socks I want to cry. My husband LOVES mowing yards, he would tell you that he always has. He would tell you if he could he would do it all year and never work for anyone but himself. Then Monday came and he was home with us all day...and wished he didn't have to get on his mower or go to work the next day. See, what it boils down to is that truly he would not do this if he didn't have too. He would spend his evenings with our kids and with me. He would not be running all over creation mowing yards and coming in dead tired every night. I love a hard working man and he is one.

He just came in from work and said..."Okay, I gotta go to work." I said...."We are going to see Granny." His response sadly was..."I should probably go see her too but I've gotta work." He's making a quick sandwich and heading back out in the heat with clean white socks. I found a way to bring myself home from my job because my kids needed me and I was missing everything working 50 plus hours a week. My means, it will bring him home too. He might tell you he'd never stop working but I'd like to think he could have more options. Our "time debt" is stealing our life away minute by minute. My purpose in life is greater than debt of any kind. I love teaching and education and I believe God will use my background in some significant way in the future, maybe sooner rather than later, maybe not. I love teaching but my purpose is bigger and I needed a means bigger to get me there If what I have found wasn't meant for us, it wouldn't have worked for us, AND is why I believe it has worked for many others. Still, it is providing more than we imagined already in less than 2 years, and we've only just begun. It's just a means to an end...a vehicle to allow us to live more purposefully. Our purpose, fulfilled, is going to be amazing to watch unfold.

Until that day, we are marching arm in arm to debt freedom and some day I won't have to keep a basket in the garage for his dirty socks.

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. Proverbs 22:77